Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness ofabandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapplewith their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and inter-pret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get agreater sense of meaning and purpose. Bettelheim thought that by en-gaging with these socially-evolved stories, children would go throughemotional growth that would better prepare them for their own futures.--Wikipedia entry on Bruno Bettelheim

This unique release offers three short literary adaptations from1992-1997. Christina Ricci stars in the first as a less-than-innocent Little Red Riding Hood. In adapting "Conte de la MéreGrande," director David Kaplan (Year of the Fish) eschewsdialogue and shoots in Expressionist B&W. As in the famousfairy tale, Red meets Wolf (Timour Bourtasenkov), an androg-ynous dancer in stylized garb, en route to Granny's house.

Once she arrives, Red finds meat and wine on the table, and digsin, even though the talking cat (a puppet) explains their grimprovenance. After that, Wolf asks her to disrobe and climb intobed, which she does before taking a break (for "pee-pee" as nar-rator Quentin Crisp puts it). It isn't clear if Wolf means toseduce or to kill her, but her final act clarifies the matter.

Billed as a "cautionary tale," Heinrich Hoffman's Little Suck-a-Thumb revolves around a boy (an adult Cork Hubbert) with poorimpulse control. This time, Kaplan films with color and sound. Af-ter tucking him into bed, his mother (Evelyn Solann) warns thathe'll lose his thumbs if he sucks them, but he can't resist, and apale tailor (Jim Hilbert) with scissors pays a late-night visit.

Kaplan returns to silent-film mode with the Brothers Grimm's TheFrog King, which relays the tale of a girl (Eden Riegel) and a par-ticularly grotesque frog (another puppet) who retrieves her lostdoll from a well in hopes that she'll sleep with him. (Their conver-sation plays out though a series of title cards in which the words"in your bed" get bigger and bigger.) When the girl reneges, thefrog follows her home to ensure that she honors her promise.

This set includes commentary on all three films from folklorescholar Jack Zipes and Kaplan, who cites artist/filmmaker JeanCocteau (La Belle et la Bête, Orphée) and author/child psycho-logistBruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment) as influen-ces. Fans of Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and Guy Maddin,and will surely find this collection of interest. Recommended.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Sassy Sings

I named my tiny catLola after thegender-bending Kinks classic, but if Ihad to do it all over again, I'd credit"Whatever Lola Wants, " the slinkynumber from 1955's Damn Yankees(Richard Adler and Jerry Ross), be-cause I find her as "irresistible" as thelady in question, the devil's assistant.

Whatever the sleek, grey Lola wants--food, water, a rub on thetummy--she gets. It doesn't matter what I'm doing at the time.She looks up at me with those pleading eyes, and I'm a goner.

Vaughan and Ray Davies offer but two examples; Lola appears invarious guises throughout entertainment history, like the cabaretentertainer Marlene Dietrich plays in von Sternberg's The Blue An-gel (Der Blaue Engel) or the central figure in Barry Manilow's 19-78 hit "Copacabana" ("Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...").

As a rule, she's a femme fatale; lovely to look at, but hardly trust-worthy, i.e. "You can't win" against one. Sounds like a cat to me!

And here's another one of my favorite performances from the Div-ine One (1924-1990), who was at her best in noir mode. Plenty ofother ladies have tackled this 1948 Sonny Burke and Paul FrancisWebster composition, but Vaughan trumps them all (dig the waythe burst of brass at the end adds a caffeine-like kick). Accordingto Wikipedia, she "charted with this song in 1949 on Columbia."I also enjoy the smokey renditions by Peggy Lee and k.d. lang.

Endnote: Image from the PBS site for Jazz: A Filmby Ken Burns (courtesy of Frank Driggs Collection).

About Me

I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.